the LAST one

Dear Salle 211 families,

THANK YOU for the beautiful cards, messages and generous gifts. You are too kind.

Today our students received the gift of a French book from me, that I hope they enjoy. They also brought home their beautiful portfolios which I hope you enjoy looking at for many years to come. The children, together with me and our wonderful student teachers, worked on collecting and reflecting on our work throughout the year and our most important pieces are collected in these portfolios. While I was finishing them this week, I looked back to the beginning of the year - what a difference!! I truly hope this is a special piece that you will be able to look through now with your child and look back on in the future.

Students also have a pink letter for you with some tips for summer practicing (and some homework - yes!! - that they should bring to their first day of grade 2). It is so important that we keep doing a little bit of reading or word study review every day this summer. Trust me - it will make a huge difference!
I also assembled a little travel package of fun worksheets that your child can bring with them on your next long car trip or airplane ride. You'll just need a few crayons and a pencil. Hope they enjoy!

Again, thank you for all your amazing support this year. I'll see you all in September.

Have an amazing summer!

À bientôt,
Mlle Mitchell

PS - If you receive email updates from this blog, you will want to follow the instructions in the emails to remove yourself from the list so that you don't hear from me again in a couple months! Please feel free to continue accessing the links on this blog for as long as you wish.

Park Pics!

Dear families,

We had a great morning in the park yesterday. The kids had lots of fun doing a million different activities (baseball, soccer, sand pit, structure, climbers, catching games, monkey in the middle, card games & colouring). Thanks again to the parents & grand-parent that helped us with supervision!

Park Day!

Dear parents,

Tuesday park day is a GO!
We will leave the school fairly shortly after attendance, so please be on time.

Remember, students are welcome to bring a ball, frisbee or other game to play with at the park, but they must be able to carry it on their own and are responsible for keeping track of all their belongings. All students will need a lunch (litterless if you can) and water bottle.

Please send students to school with sunscreen already applied, a hat, and if your child has a Dewson t-shirt, this would be a good day to wear it!

We will be back to school around 12:30 and report cards will be distributed at the end of the day.
As always with reports, I will talk to the children about the following:
1. Only open your envelope with a parent or caregiver.
2. Please consider the learning skills section carefully - it is hard to make progress academically without strong learning skills and I have taken great care to be specific here.
3. My comments are more important than specific marks. I've worked hard to say what your child is great at and what you can continue to work on. Nevertheless, here are what the letters mean:
If you receive a 'B' or 'G', that means you are meeting expectations - following instructions, completing work well, working with an appropriate amount of independence... basically what the teacher has asked of you. These are great marks and should be celebrated! A 'C' or 'S' means you are approaching expectations. You could use a little practice with that skill or concept, but nothing to get upset about. A 'D' or 'N' means we need to work on this area and it is important that we work on it both at school and at home. To achieve an 'A' or 'E', you really must be demonstrating that you have gone beyond expectations. This could mean working or maintaining classroom routines independently, making connections between concepts, putting a great deal of energy into creating work that is more detailed or more descriptive than what was expected or outlined.

Please share my comments with your children and help them set a goal for grade 2!

You've probably noticed that we've begun cleaning out our classroom. A bunch of workbooks and duotangs came home today and we started working on the shoe bin. If you know you are missing shoes or anything else, please send your child to school on a mission to find it! One of the duotangs that came home today was our orange dictionary. I would encourage everyone to use this, along with your words of the week, to review over the summer. Then, in September, bring it back to school so that your student already has a bank of words to refer to in grade 2!

Please scroll down for a special thank you from me to you.

Thanks!

Thanks for a great year!

Dear parents,

I can't believe the end of the year is already upon us. It really snuck up on me this year.

I'd like to take a moment to give my heartfelt thanks to YOU, the parents. Thank you for practising the words of the week beginning from the second day of school. Thank you for reading in French at home. Thank you for following this blog and talking to your children about school - what a difference it makes! Thank you for communicating with me and being open to hearing from me as well. Not only does it make my life so much easier and my job so much more enjoyable, but it contributes to the success of our students in observable ways.

I have enjoyed every class I have had, but I feel especially proud of the progress this group has made over the year. I think we have to thank our Principal for bringing in the 3 to 3 program this year (that's where the rhymes and oral stories came from). All of this additional oral French material has added greatly to our French vocabulary and confidence with spoken French. But I also know for sure that our students relied on you to be their at-home teacher. I also know that you instill a love of learning in your children. I want you to know that I don't take that for granted.

Thank you for a great year and I look forward to seeing you all again in our same hallway next September!

You will be hearing from me lots more this week, but I'll already wish you a wonderful summer!
Tamara

Thank You!

Dear families and friends of Salle 211,

Thank you to all of the guests that were able to attend our open-house today. You really made it special for me and the kids by being here and being so enthusiastic about what we had prepared. I'm so proud of the class and hope you are too!

Next Tuesday we are scheduled to walk over to Dufferin Grove park for the morning. However, I have not yet heard from any parents who are able to come with us for supervision purposes. If you are available, we would really appreciate you coming. We do need two parents for safety's sake.

I neglected to post our words of the week last Tuesday.

This week we were formally introduced to the present of the verb être (to be). Like avoir, we use this verb every day and know what it should sound like.

Again, try making up sentences that begin this way. E.g., Tu es très jolie maman!

je suis, tu es, il est, elle est, on est, 

nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont, elles sont

Thank you for supporting our words-of-the-week and borrow-a-book programs this year!!! There will be no words next Tuesday and please have a good look around and send back ALL white classroom books and other school books. Thanks!

Bonne fête des pères!

Hi families,

I hope all the papas out there had a great father's day and liked our monster hugs - they were fun to make!!

Sorry, I got busy and forgot to put the story rubrics in mailboxes Friday. They will come today along with the dictée. Also, I think I forgot to mention that all students reflected on what they like about their story, and what they can keep working on. This is on the back of the rubric.

We are VERY excited about our open-house! Only a few more sleeps!!!
Remember, the AM open-house begins Friday at 10:45 am. 
The PM open-house begins Friday at 1:00 pm. 
We will not be ready much earlier, but please be prompt so that you have enough time for a good tour before we begin our presentation. Also, I realize it's a Friday near the end of the school year, but please try to avoid early pick-ups before 2pm. Everyone is a part of both the AM and PM presentations!
I will send home mini-reminder notes Thursday with your time and a suggestion for what your actor could wear to look their part. Can't wait to see you!

In the meantime, I'm also planning for next week - so sad!
On Tuesday the 28th, all the grade 1 classes are planning to go to Dufferin Grove park for some fun in the morning. A note with all the details is coming home today. Please let me know if you're able to come with us (little siblings welcome).
Here's a copy of the note:

Chers Parents,

            Congratulations! Your children have worked hard this year and we would like to celebrate by going to Dufferin Grove Park on Tuesday June 28^th. Room 211, along with two other grade 1 classes, will leave Dewson at 9:30 am and return by 12:30 pm at the latest. The children will get a chance to play on the playground, participate in games and enjoy a picnic lunch. Children are welcome to bring skipping ropes, a Frisbee, or a game to play with friends. Students are responsible for carrying and keeping track of their belongings. Parents are welcome to come join the celebrations.

            Please ensure that children are dressed for the weather, including sunscreen and hats. Children should bring a water bottle and litterless lunch and snacks if possible.

            No permission forms are required since all walking excursion forms have been submitted. If it is rainy, we will simply cancel and have fun at school. I do need at least two parents who can commit to staying all day to help supervise. Please email me if you are available! Thanks!

Thank you for all your support this year,

Mlle Mitchell

Tamara.mitchell2@tdsb.on.ca

And here's a message from our librarian:

Dewson wishes that all students return materials to the library by Jun 24. This will allow the library to proceed with the inventory of our school library in order to be ready for the next school year. Please look in your backpacks, under your beds, on your desks, on your shelves, in your living room, in the kitchen, even in the dog house! 
Thanks!

Mme Gaudreault

Story Rubrics & Summer Reading

Hi parents,

Now that we have all presented our wonderful stories to each other, I decided to copy and send home the rubric for you to see. It is always better to have the actual project with you when you look at an evaluation, however, we definitely want to have our stories on display during our open house. Soon, students will bring home their story and all their work from the year, but since this was a major project, and is included in our language mark for this term, I want you to have the opportunity to see the rubric while there is still time to ask questions. If you would like to meet one last time before the end of the school year I'd be happy to accommodate you.
We also completed our final June dictée and I will send home this rubric shortly.

It is the beginning of the end. Every day from now on is the last one of its kind, and today was the last day 10. This means, no more library. Please have a good search around your home and ensure that ALL Dewson library books have been returned. I am happy for students to continue borrowing classroom books for one more week, but please send in anything you are finished with right away.

It is so important that we keep up our practice routines over the summer. We have gotten in the good habit of reading a little bit in French everyday, and the results of this are evident. If you would like for me to put together a package of French books for you to work on over the summer, I would be happy to. They just need to be returned to me in Room 211 on the first day of school in September. Please email me if this would be helpful.

Our final art project for the year is to create our own illustrations for Le Petit Prince. We are trying the technique of doing a nice pencil drawing and then lightly using water colour paint to add some colour. We will work on this a bit each day and create a whole collection of beautiful illustrations based on the book. I have been SO impressed with the care taken on these illustrations so far. Thanks to Mme Ally for gifting us the lovely drawing books. We will have pages left over to continue being artists over the summer!
Please ask your listener to tell you what's going on in the book right now. Le petit prince is telling the narrator how he left his planet and went on a big adventure!

Have a great weekend!
Tamara

Pictures & update!

What a fun bike rodeo! Our class did such a great job practising their skills, maneuvering in the courses without crashing and especially sharing bikes with those who were not able to bring one. Thanks for practising the locking and unlocking - it was quick and painless!

Last week we began working on book reports with our clubs de lecture. Each group was given a book at their level to read together and write about. Ask your reader what book they read with their group and what happens at the beginning, middle and end.
All of our authors have now read their original story to the class. We will have them on display for you next Friday and hope you will ask for a personal reading during your tour!

In math, we've been using our probability terms in lots of different games. Monday we set up 7 probability centres which we rotated through with lots of help from our awesome grade 6 teachers. The games included flipping a coin, rolling dice, choosing cards from a deck, drawing names in a lottery, choosing the right door in a game show, a spinner game and considering the chances of winning in 'Roll up the Rim to Win'! Ask your predictor which game they likes best and what it involved. Maybe you can play it together when you visit!

Words of the Week
This week we are formally being introduced to the present of the verb avoir (to have). We use this verb every day and know what it should sound like. For example, students know that “Nous a du travail à faire” sounds weird, and that it should be “Nous avons...”. This week, work on spelling the verb correctly and making up sentences that start with each person. You can substitute proper names for il and elle. E.g., Elle a les cheveux bruns. Tamara a les cheveux bruns.

j’ai, tu as, il a, elle a, on a, 
nous avons, vous avez, ils ont, elles ont